Friday Discussion: Enough talk, it’s almost gameday

It’s been 279 days since the Michigan Wolverines have taken the field after only appearing in six games last season. With a combination of a shorter season and bypassing the Ohio State game for the first time in the 21st century, this offseason had us twiddling our thumbs more than usual in anticipation of the upcoming year.

Now that the 2021 season is finally here, uninterrupted for the most part, it appears as if the feelings of a typical fall Saturday in Ann Arbor are coming out of their cage. The 2020 season felt like an experiment gone wrong — mostly because it didn’t fit the narrative of Michigan in any conceivable way. We can shelve it now and let it collect dust for the rest of its days.

With buzz brewing in Ann Arbor and within the Michigan Wolverine community, the theme for this week is all about anticipation. We want to see if our record predictions are going to be right or which position groups are going to go off. We want to see if there is unity and congruity amongst the team.

Is there the hunger that comes from dusting off the past to prove those that doubt Michigan wrong?

What are we as a collective going to be paying attention to after kick off against Western Michigan this Saturday?

Are we going to be paying close attention to the offense or the new defense? Will these questions even matter because all we are thinking about is being in the moment?

We have reached the point of wanting no more discussion.

“Enough of last year. Enough talk about last year. Enough talk about everything, it’s time to do,” linebacker Josh Ross told the media recently.

It’s time to finally see what the Maize and Blue will do within the white lines. There aren’t any more questions or previews or predictions left to satisfy the pull of returning. While we could be left with a wide range of questions and curiosities, at this point only Saturday has the ability to answer them.

All that we are left with are lists of things we want. We want this Saturday at 12:00 P.M. EST in Ann Arbor. We want the normalcy of waking up the usually quiet, sleeping town of Ann Arbor. We want to be a part of one of the largest crowds watching a football game. We want gameday.

It is almost as if the return to the Big House is all we are looking forward to. This year we don’t have to watch every Michigan game from our couches. We get to be there and do everything that we used to before the world turned sideways. In no means are we in the clear, but the prospect of being as close as we can when we haven’t set foot in the stadium since the fall of 2019 has us itching with excitement.

We are less than 24 hours away from Week 1, Game 1. What are you most anticipating/looking forward to this Saturday? Let us know in the comments!